The press release announcing that the Ohio recount is now expected has an interesting footnote from Jonathan Turley, a professor of constitutional law at George Washington University:
'Electors are certified on Dec. 7. They actually vote on Dec. 13. But those votes are not opened by Congress until Jan. 6. So there is still time to challenge the results in Ohio -- as well as other close states such as New Mexico, Iowa and Nevada.'
Turley added: 'I was surprised on the morning after the election. I was legal analyst with CBS News for the election and we did not go off the air until 6 a.m. At that time, due to the reports and my conversation with Kerry attorneys, I expected a challenge. Kerry's statement the day after the election that there were not enough provisional ballots to have any chance to alter the result of the election may have been true, but it was a bit misleading since provisional ballots are only part of the story. There were also absentee ballots, there were reports of substantial pockets of election problems, and allegations of over-voting and machine malfunction. In addition, over 70 percent of Ohio's votes were done with punch cards. We know that when you do a challenge to those, they tend to turn over. So there is room to challenge Ohio and other states. This is not to say that a recount is likely to change the result of the election, but it is not an impossibility.'
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